Hey, Any Razorbacks still breathing?

[quatorze 1]

DAYUM




ENOLA, Ark. (AP) Arkansas endured a tornado outbreak that lasted more than eight hours and claimed at least one life as storms scoured central and eastern portions of the state.

Rains strong enough to bring flash flooding persisted into Thursday morning as thunderstorms continued to rumble across the state's southeast. Wednesday's first tornado warning rang out at 3:30 p.m. for the Enola area of Faulkner County, where 84-year-old Bobbie Lee Glover was killed at her home. Another 13 people were reported injured, one critically.

So little was left of the elderly woman's home that officials couldn't say whether it was a frame house or a mobile home.

"Even the fence posts were blown down," Faulkner County sheriff's spokesman Jack Pike said. Her body was found in a pasture 800 yards away from the home site.

Also, Arkansas Department of Emergency Management spokesman Ray Briggler on Thursday morning initially said that a second death, this time on a roadway, in the same area was blamed on the weather, but later said he was wrong, and that no such death had occurred.

Richard Westbrook was hurt in the tornado, and said he heard one of his young children scream, "Daddy, Daddy!" as soon as the winds abated.

"All I can remember is black and seeing stars and being knocked around," Westbrook said from the Conway Regional Medical Center emergency room. The Westbrook family home was destroyed, though none of the six people who were inside sustained serious injuries.

About 7,000 utility customers in Faulkner County were without electricity for a time, and other scattered outages were reported across much of the state.

In Des Arc, officials ordered the Prairie County Jail evacuated after a tree fell on a 6,000-gallon butane tank, causing a leak. About 100 residents also had to leave their homes, but the order was lifted after about an hour, Des Arc police said. Some homes in the area were damaged by high winds.

Temperatures Wednesday were 15 degrees above normal for the late fall day. Last weekend, when temperatures began rising into the 60s, weather forecasters warned that an outbreak of severe weather was possible as the next cold front approached.

On Wednesday, tornado warnings were posted in northeastern, central and southern Arkansas as storms fueled by Gulf moisture and a powerful jet stream converged over the state. In a period stretching 8 1/2 hours, tornadic storms had followed 28 distinct tracks in the state. The last tornado warning of the night came when radar at the weather service indicated rotation over Union County at 11:58 p.m.

The storm cells zoomed northeast, some moving faster than 50 mph, but they did so along a line that took its time progressing out of the state.

Though hail, high winds and torrents of rain were abundant, officials in many of the warned counties reported no major damage.

But in Faulkner County, the sheriff's office said a number of people in the Hamlet area were injured and taken to hospitals. Hamlet is about 12 miles south of Enola and much of the damage occurred along Arkansas 36, which runs between the two towns.

Traffic heading north from Hamlet was blocked, and Pike said several houses and trailers were destroyed in the Hamlet area.

In Vilonia, schools were ordered closed Thursday due to electric outages from Wednesday's storms. Vilonia Elementary Principal Brent Bogy said a substation on Arkansas 36 was damaged in the storm, possibly by a tornado, and the school buildings are now without electricity. Yet to be decided is whether the schools would remain closed Friday ahead of the Christmas break.

Conway Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Lori Ross said 13 people with tornado-related injuries were treated in the hospital's emergency room.

In the state's southern area, one home in the Crossett-Hamburg area near the Louisiana border sustained heavy damage, but no deaths or injuries were reported. In central Arkansas, southeast of Faulkner County and east of Little Rock, power was reported out to much of Hazen.

Wednesday's outbreak was similar to a widespread storm system that hit the state Jan. 21, 1999. In that series of storms, 56 tornadoes were logged, and eight people lost their lives.

John Robinson, a severe weather specialist with the National Weather Service's North Little Rock office, said conditions were slightly cooler Wednesday than in the 1999 outbreak but that other factors, including strong upper-level winds, would contribute to a significant series of storms.

In Faulkner County, a temporary shelter was set up at the Holland Community Center.

I'm not afriad of dying, I'm afraid of never really living- Erin Engle